


your energy has not died

by imgoingtocrash



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Other Avengers Mentioned - Freeform, Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Lives, Tony Stark/Pepper Potts (Background/Canon Compliant)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22052857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imgoingtocrash/pseuds/imgoingtocrash
Summary: SHIELD safe-houses are always in the middle of nowhere, and Tony hates them on principle for that fact. (His lake house is in a respectable little slice of nowhere in the Catskills, thank you very much.)Honestly, Tony hates that he’s anywhere but home right now with his wife and child, cuddled up by the fire watchingHow to Train Your Dragonfor the twentieth time.But it isn’t the right time. Not until the whole family can be there. Not until he finds Peter.Tony Stark died, turning to dust like the enemies he vanquished with his final act of heroism. A year later, the unverse brings him back. Hiding away from the world after the reveal of his identity, Peter finds it harder to believe than anyone, and Tony has to convince him that it’s not all just another illusion.
Relationships: Pepper Potts & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 29
Kudos: 316
Collections: Fics that make my heart go OOF with fluff, Irondad Fic Exchange 2019





	your energy has not died

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CinnamonrollStark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CinnamonrollStark/gifts).



> This is my first of two fics for the IronDad Fic Exchange, for CinnamonrollStark. I chose their prompt of: _Tony comes back to life by some miracle years after the snap. This is their reunion._ I hope you enjoy it! (There is so much whump, just for you, but also for me!)
> 
> Writing this thing was a BEAST, but I knew it would be. There are a lot of things I wanted to address with this prompt, and getting where I wanted to forced me to walk away and come back quite a few times. I’m super proud of the result, though, so I hope you have a great time reading it!
> 
> The title is from [this quote](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4675953), also referenced within the fic itself.

SHIELD safe-houses are always in the middle of nowhere, and Tony hates them on principle for that fact. (His lake house is in a respectable little slice of nowhere in the Catskills, thank you very much.)

Honestly, Tony hates that he’s anywhere but home right now with his wife and child, cuddled up by the fire watching _How to Train Your Dragon_ for the twentieth time. 

But it isn't the right time. Not until the whole family can be there. Not until he finds Peter.

He'd come into existence in the middle of the now (mostly) rebuilt Avengers Compound, lying on the floor instead of the debris he remembered, no trace of the battle that took his life in sight. 

Oh, and also, he was _alive_. He remembered dying, remembered Pepper’s face, Rhodey’s, god, _Peter’s_. He wanted to rest, sure, but he was welcome to take that as retirement rather than, you know, being dead.

His sudden presence didn’t go unnoticed—he went through every identity test and medical check and so on and so forth that not-SHIELD and the remaining Avengers could throw at him. He didn’t look a day over fifty-two, literally. It was like for those who had been snapped—he was the same as when he left. The same old joint pains, the same wrinkles and grey hairs, just none of the damage from the glove. They were pretty sure he wasn’t some kind of alien doppelgänger or technological replicate. He was just back in a world where he wasn’t before.

After everything Tony submitted himself to, finally, _finally_ Pepper came to see him. He’d still been in a cage at the time (eerily familiar to the one they put Barnes in way back when) but he’d heard the noise of the door unlocking and welcomed the familiar splash of reddish-blonde against repetitive white.

“Pep,” he breathed, his hands already against the glass, wishing he could reach out to her. “Jesus, Pep, I’m so sorry, honey, I didn’t mean—Strange said there was only one option and I’d prepared for it, but I didn’t want to leave you. I didn’t want to leave Morgan, but—”

“I should know it’s really you just from that,” she replied, the hint of a grin on her lip betraying the nervous wringing of her hands. To many she had a poker face of steel in high pressure situations, but she’d become comfortable screaming her discomfort and displeasure directly into Tony’s face very early in their relationship. Open and honest was the only way they saw each other after decades. “Apologizing for saving the universe, honestly.”

“If there’s a test you want to run, now’s the time. Want the story of the time we met? Most embarrassing thing you ever caught me doing? Detailed description of the thing I do with my tongue on your—”

Pepper put out a hand to stop him. “It’s just—hard. You know what it’s like, Tony. If only Peter had come back after the Blip and shown up acting like nothing had happened…”

Tony nodded. “I also know there’s, ah, grieving, involved.” He crossed his arms, rubbing the sudden shivers out. He was well aware of all the things he did in spirals of grief—things she’d watched him do—and he didn't wish them on her. “I guess I hope the funeral was nice, but you know I was never a fan of those either.”

“It sucked,” Pepper replies, her tone sharp. A tear slips down her cheek and she swipes it away a little mechanically. “I put that old arc reactor in the lake and we all said our goodbyes, and then all I had left—all _Morgan had left of you_ was that stupid recording. You’re such an asshole sometimes, god.”

“You kept that stupid thing? Still? Seriously?” Her look is familiar—he deftly avoided the other parts of that. “Right. Well-intentioned, but mostly an asshole. Message clear.”

She leans against the clear glass with her hip, looking down at him from where she’s perched in one of her more demure pairs of heels. “I’ve missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

“I thought they said it was like no time passed for you?"

Tony shrugs. “We’re kind of a package deal. Any time away from you feels kind of wrong.”

She rolls her eyes at the cheesy nature of the statement, then knocks on the glass. “Wanna get out of there?”

“You have no idea. Remind me to tell Barnes I’m sorry for strapping him up in one of these things. Sheesh. The air recycling is garbage.”

“You’re not gonna apologize to him for anything.”

“Probably not, but the sentiment is there.”

Pepper got to bring Tony home, after that. Just the drive from the compound to their house was a bit of a shock—the interstate was peppered with traffic, the cities and neighborhoods familiar to him from years of the drive were back to their previous states of population and activity.

“How’s it been since...what’d you call it?” he remarks as they pass a not-very-accurate mural of Tony punching Thanos in the face with the gauntlet.

“The Blip. It has a few different names, since no one can seem to decide.” From her grumbling tone, Tony can tell that bothers her in a passive sort of way, considering that Pepper is the particular person she’s always been about the small details. “It’s a bit of a mixed bag. Overpopulation is more common than under, now. Some people came back into homes that weren’t there anymore. Others came back into dangerous or deadly situations. I’ve been supporting charities for victims of displacement with May and having Stark Industries do as much as it can, indirectly."

“May? As in…?”

Pepper nods, moving a hand from the steering wheel to Tony’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “Yeah. She and Peter had to move apartments, but she was grateful that we saved everything we could in storage. Working with the charity has been keeping her busy.”

“And Peter?” he’d dared to ask. He was worried Peter would be fine without him, similarly worried that the kid had done something irreparable to himself within the first week of his absence.

There was a long enough pause that Pepper caught Tony’s anxiety over it. “He’s okay. He’s safe, alive. Just—a lot happened, once society started rolling again, and it’s a very, very long story that I don’t want to get into until dealing with Morgan.” She brings his hand to her lips, pressing a kiss against his fingers, trying to siphon out the way they’ve practically started to shake with worry. “You’d be so proud, though, honey. I told him you would be.”

God, if putting Morgan down that night seemed impossible, it was hard to imagine ever letting Peter go. He’d lived without Peter for five years, and in turn Peter had lived without Tony for one. They deserved at least a week of screwing around in the lab and watching sitcom reruns on the couch. Whatever the kid wanted, even if it was pineapple on pizza or mixing six ice cream flavors together like the little freak that he is, Tony would give it to him.

The story of Peter’s horrendous vacation was a pretty simple one, though Pepper’s version was only the condensed retelling of what she’d heard from Happy himself. A bad guy disguised as a good one. A vendetta towards Tony Stark (get a new MO, bad guys, the line started in 1999 or earlier, depending on if Obie _ever_ really loved him). Abuse of EDITH. Peter unmasked before the world and Spider-Man given a bad rap for the actions of Quentin Beck.

Yes, watching Peter dissolve in his arms was the worst torture he'd ever endured (the gauntlet didn't hold a candle, though it sure tried). Coming back and worrying Peter was gone all over again certainly wasn’t fun either. Thankfully this time he didn't have to invent time travel to find the kid. He just had to go through the proper channels with Nick Fury and Carol Danvers.

He thought Pepper would hate that he wanted to go after Peter so soon. Coming home to his daughter only to leave again was kind of a bad look. Instead, always surprising him, she instantly agreed to his plan of making sure Peter knew Tony was alive and hopefully bringing him home so that they could sort this mess out.

"I tried to bring him here after. I wanted to keep him close, and Happy and I wanted to protect him. He had enough of a rough time after you—” She stopped herself, skipping over the obvious mention of his death. “Hill thought it was too obvious, that someone looking for him would check here first because he was your intern and wore your tech. I guess with Morgan, even Peter didn't want to risk it." She squeezed his arms. "But he needs his family. I never wanted him to be alone, and May is worried sick. You’re probably the only person that can convince him that we can clear his name.” She tilted her head. “We _can_ clear his name, right?”

“That’s the plan,” Tony deflected. Pepper instantly caught on to the fact that he’d been flying by the seat of his pants as always since the moment he came back to life, but she didn’t comment on it. He assumes that if Peter has EDITH, Tony can get into her code and figure out exactly what Beck and his cronies manipulated to frame Peter. Still, that’s just a hope. If Tony has to come back from the dead Jesus-style and prophesize that Spider-Man is innocent, that’s what he’ll do. As long as they can bring Peter home.

So. That’s how Tony has ended up in the woods of Chattanooga (why is it always Tennessee?), searching for the shitty little cabin that Peter has apparently resigned himself to live in for the indeterminate future.

“How’re we looking, FRI?” Tony asks, cursing when his leg almost gives out under a rotted tree branch. To avoid telling the entire world that he’s alive before he knows if that’s a thing he actually wants to do yet, he’s taken the harder option of physically traipsing around in the woods like—well, like the kind of person who can actually do that sort of thing without their AI telling them which way North is.

“Half a mile ahead, boss,” FRIDAY confirms.

“Life signs?”

“None, but it’s... _abnormally_ blank. No life signs of the native wildlife, either. It is Peter—he might have something rigged to keep people off of his trail.”

He ruminates on the thought, trudging ahead with a little more care to his surroundings. He has no doubt that Peter has the smarts and creativity to booby-trap the bejeezus out of a forest if he wants to, but his conversation with Fury indicated that Peter was mostly relying on being off the grid to do the work of keeping people away for him: living out in the sticks, receiving orders of groceries and entertainment materials via EDITH’s drones, and otherwise keeping little to no technology around.

Tony can attest to the peace and quiet of living away from the city. It kept his family anonymous for years after the Snap. Still, he’d wired FRIDAY into the house much like he’d done with JARVIS back in the day, and his garage workshop was a thing of beauty, even if he used it less because he was busy with Morgan during most of the day.

The idea of Peter being out here, completely alone, not even in contact with his aunt or his friends, no longer out helping people with his alter-ego…

He died in the first place so that Peter could continue to live. This doesn’t sound like much of a life at all. Even Tony went into town for his groceries.

Tony finally reaches a small clearing, the surrounding trees not far off from sagging over the little cabin smack-dab in the middle. It’s a picturesque little scene—a woodsy equivalent to the Barton’s farm with the wood-cutting stump, clothesline, and other minute traces of life. It’s just not the kind of place Tony ever would have imagined for Peter.

He makes it to the front door without damage, but he stands there a little awkwardly, shifting, unsure of how to do this. Open with a snarky one-liner? Bring Peter in for a hug like the last time? Handling one’s own return from the dead isn’t really something he could have prepared for. He supposes those gone in the Blip might understand, but he’d really _died_. He’d said pitiful excuses for goodbyes while raggedly taking in his last breaths. The poor kid probably heard his heart stop beating.

“Shit,” he mutters, bending down, hands on his knees. He can feel a panic attack coming on, which is stupid. Then again, the years of experiencing them and a little bit of therapy have taught him that the human brain is kind of dramatic in general, and he’s put his through the wringer. The only way through the attack is to do the damn thing or turn his ass around to go back home and calm down.

It’s not like leaving Peter was ever an option.

He lets out a little groan, fighting the way his heart thinks it needs to beat this fast. He has a heart condition already, for Christ’s sake. Then he takes a deep breath and knocks on the door gingerly to avoid the possibility of splinters.

* * *

The thing about living in the middle of nowhere that Peter’s actually come to appreciate is that he doesn’t get a lot of visitors. It’s definitely a change from the crowded streets of New York, but there’s a certain peace to planning out your entire day and never having to worry about other people.

Though the crappy cabin he’s currently living in is nothing compared to the Stark lake house, Peter thinks he gets why Tony wanted to move away from it all when it felt like his world was falling apart.

This is why he’s concerned about a knock at his door in the middle of the day. Specifically—why isn’t his instinctive sense raising any concerns about it? Any other time, even for drop-bys from ex-SHIELD operatives or Fury himself, Peter’s known they were coming long before they ever actually approached the cabin’s door. The idea that someone can even sneak up on him anymore...it isn’t comforting, considering the last time it happened, he’d gotten into the colossal mound of trouble with Beck that led him here in the first place.

Maybe it’s just someone lost in the woods. A real, genuine circumstantial pattern of events that led a stranger to his door looking for help. Of course his sense wouldn’t react to something unthreatening.

The cabin isn’t the most spacious—honestly, it’s smaller than his and May’s new two-bedroom apartment, and that place seemed tiny compared to their old one. 

(Their old place had been Ben’s apartment first, according to May. He’d secured the apartment rent controlled long ago, and he had stayed friends with the landlord after he and May got married. Even Ben’s death wasn’t enough to make the landlord hike up the price to the usual obscene New York rates. But then they’d both been dusted, and Tony and Pepper had cleaned out their belongings, and that was that.)

Suffice to say, it doesn’t take him long to cross the ten steps from the bedroom to the window. Normally, someone would probably be able to see him peeking through it, but he generally climbs on the ceiling to do so. If anyone thinks the place is empty, they’ll crash through the door and he’ll have them webbed up from above before they can make a sound.

He doesn’t get a full look, but it’s a lone figure at the door. Male, despite the light knocks on the door. Not wearing anything particularly signifying, just jeans and a sweater. The man’s hair is dark with some noticeable grey in the mix along with some neatly trimmed facial hair, but otherwise his face is too close to the door for Peter to recognize him. Though he hopes he _wouldn’t_ recognize him. Anyone out here looking for Peter Parker isn’t good news.

The man does another series of knocks, the musical _tap-tap-tap-tap-tap_ of it echoing a little louder through the quiet cabin.

His sense is still eerily quiet. Peter makes a decision. He climbs down from the wall and opens the door.

Behind it is—it’s—no, that’s not right, it _can’t_ be—

“Hey, kiddo,” says Tony Stark, hands buried in his denim pockets, shoulders scrunched in, teeth clenched, facial features settled into a bit of a cringe at himself. “Sorry, that was—it’s weird, I know. You should’ve seen Sam’s face when he found me. I swear he thought I was some kind of spirit come back to haunt him. He kept making those cross signs, you know.” Peter’s not Catholic, but he recognizes the Sign of the Cross gesture despite otherwise currently losing his mind.

Peter’s mouth stays open, because he can’t control it, can’t move, can’t breathe. His heart is beating fast, permeating the sounds of the forest around them. His limbs are glued to the rotting wood of the cabin floor. Strands of his hair fall limply out of the product that usually holds them back and into his eye-line, obscuring the face of a man who no longer exists.

“C’mon Pete, you’re scaring me here.” Tony wriggles the gold band on his finger, a gesture Peter hasn’t seen on the man before because he wasn’t married yet before the Blip. “You, ah—you look good. Okay, I mean. Pepper filled me in on what happened with Beck. I was expecting—well, you saw how Cap went all mountain man after Germany, right? Can you even grow a beard?”

It’s Tony. It can’t be Tony. Tony is dead, but he’s here in front of Peter, looking older but the same. Looking at Peter with—with that _look_ , like he had so briefly before they hugged on the battlefield.

It’s too good. Too real. Which makes Peter think—maybe it isn’t.

“You know I’m bad with silences, Pete. You and me, quiet never was our thing. I went to the middle of the forest and then got myself a crying newborn that turned into a toddler with my penchant to never go to bed and so it all really—”

Peter reaches out an arm, breaking the spell of seeing his mentor again for the first time in almost a year by pulling the man—this not-Tony, this illusion, it has to be—into the house, slamming the door closed and shoving him against it.

Peter holds the man up, a fraction of his super strength keeping the man off the ground with only one arm. “Who are you?”

“Uh. No, okay, I can work with this. Tony Stark, you know who I am, Iron Man, etcetera. Your mentor, friend, fake boss, not to brag but, uh, savior of the universe.” He puts up his hands, as if in surrender, putting on the smile he always used to use with a gracious amount of snark. “I survived. Now, how that happened exactly is a good question, but uh...yay! Go Team Tony!”

Peter brings his other arm to Tony’s neck, eliciting a croak. “You know, people underestimate me because I’m young. Beck made that mistake too. I try to see the best in people, I really do, but then you guys come into my neighborhood, my home, threaten my friends, my family...I can’t be so nice anymore. People are after me for stuff I didn’t do so I gotta be careful, see?” At that, the other man’s face seems to deflate a little. He imagines, sometimes, that the real Tony might look at him that way too—disappointed in the person he’s become in the wake of Beck. Losing some of the optimism and faith in the world Tony so admired him for. “I’m gonna ask again, and this time I’m hoping you’ll drop the fancy illusion tech. Who are you?”

The Tony duplicate doesn’t answer, so Peter presses harder. “Are you one of Beck’s cronies? Did Fury not collect all of you and your tech already? That’s how I beat him, you know. I can tell when it’s not real.” He omits the fact that his senses are, once again, revealing nothing about if this person that can’t be Tony is as dangerous as Peter knows he must be.

“It’s really me, Peter,” he replies, his hands going to Peter’s arm, attempting to give himself more room to breathe, Peter assumes. But his thumbs stroke against Peter’s skin and it’s—soft. Comforting, even, instead of defensive. “I’ve taken every test the other Avengers could throw at me: blood panels, MRIs, Doctor Strange’s Grab Bag of Weird Magic Tools. Pepper Potts looked me in the eye and made the call to let me walk out of the glass cage they threw me in. I’m not a robot, I’m not a clone, I’m just—Tony. Back from the dead with no explanation. Ask FRIDAY. Ask _EDITH_ , Pete. I’d pass any test they could throw at me because I’m the one that created them.”

“It’s me, Peter, please.” Tony—not-Tony, whatever—reaches out a hand, using the fact that Peter’s own arms are occupied with pinning him by the neck and chest. He digs the hand into Peter’s hair, a familiar gesture. “I can’t—I would never hurt you. I just got you back, and _I_ just got back. I want to go home to Morgan and Pepper, but I can’t do that until you’re back too. I know I was bad at saying it, maybe I wasn’t always—okay, no, I was never open and honest enough with you. But I love you, and I can’t just leave you here all alone. That’s why I did what I did—I hated living without you.”

“Stop.” Peter lets the man drop, stepping back, pushing down the warmth of the words, the comfort of Tony’s touch. “I can’t—you can’t just show up here and say that and expect me to believe you.” Peter backs up, finding himself curling away, afraid to give into the small part of him that so badly wants Tony to be the real thing, to be here and love him like he used to, said or unsaid. “Even if I wanted to, after what Beck did—”

Tony tilts his head. “Wait, what did Beck do?” At Peter’s responding look, at the expectation that whoever he is, he should know, Tony shakes his head in concern. “Pete, I only heard about everything from Pepper. The abridged version, at that. You gotta tell me what I’m dealing with. What _you’re_ dealing with.”

He shouldn’t give away all of his secrets to people so easily. He knows better now. And yet it’s Tony asking, or a convincing enough facsimile that makes Peter feel like talking for the first time in months. God, he’s wanted Tony back more than ever since Beck outed him. Tony knew everything about being a hero, everything about what Peter went through and struggled with to _become_ a hero. All he wanted was his mentor’s guidance, and in the hole Mister Stark left behind came Beck, full of false words and praise.

Still, Peter speaks. “He made me see things—people that weren’t real.” He crosses his arms, knowing that it’s a tell of his fear, of thinking about the layers and layers of lies, of waking up in this cabin and wondering if it's still an illusion. Maybe he never woke up, and Beck’s really out there ruling the world with Spider-Man mentally dead to the world and out of his way because Peter thinks he won and has been living his life in a mental lie ever since. “MJ in danger, you and your suits. He...he said things. Made me doubt myself more than ever.”

The next words come heavy. He feels the tear fall before he can think to suppress it. The fact that Beck’s words can still get to him after all this time is frustrating. He’d thought his time alone had helped, but he knows a lot of it was avoidance and distraction instead of actually dealing with Tony’s death. Maybe he never really did. “He said you might not have died, if I’d been better, and I’m not sure he was wrong.”

“Kid…” Is Tony’s only response. He starts to reach out, but seems to catch himself, keeping Peter’s distance between them instead of following through with the action. “I’m sorry that happened to you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I know the whole thing with EDITH…” He sighs. “You have to know, despite the acronym’s meaning and everything, I didn’t want to go. I made plans and preparations because that’s what I’ve always done. Pepper probably doesn’t repeat it often—it makes me look bad, and it wasn’t the best start to our relationship—but back when I was still running on palladium, I almost died.”

Peter didn’t know that, actually. And he’s read most of the existing Tony Stark biographies out there. Tony hadn’t ever bothered to pen his own. “Really?”

Tony nods, tapping at his chest, right where his reactor would’ve been. “It was killing me. I had to create an entirely new element just to solve it.”

“I heard about that.”

“Yeah. It was something from that disaster I actually wanted to get out into the world. Scientifically, there’s a lot to do with a new element, though we made a lot of that tech proprietary. My point is this: I knew I was dying for months before that, and I didn’t say a word. Not to Pepper, not to Rhodey or Happy. Instead I kept making plans in secret, hoping that if I gave Pepper the company and saved the world one more time, it’d all be worth something without me.”

Tony shakes his head. “Pepper hated that, as you could imagine. Spent the night after the battle at Stark Expo either chewing me out for not telling her or waking up and constantly checking my pulse. I never wanted to die, Peter. I didn’t go into the battle with Thanos looking for it. But Strange said there was only one option, so I prepared for the possibility, and I protected my family. It’s a miracle that I’m alive right now. I don’t know what the hell I believe in anymore, but I know that.”

“It’s also not your fault that I died, Peter. I don’t care what that bastard told you. You’re doing so good in a rough situation, and I’m proud of you.”

At that, Peter falters a little, mentally. His brain breaks the idea that it’s not Tony, because all of that—the story, the reassurance—it’s all very Tony. Just the right mix of entertaining and full of heart. Still, the idea that he just gets Tony back, alive and well...it can’t be true. He can’t just allow the thought to stay and keep him company after yearning for Tony to be back so long, after wishing more than anything some days he was back home in New York, surrounded by his loved ones again. He can’t give into fantasies just because they make him feel better.

“Well, you’re definitely not Beck,” Peter states, running a hand through his hair, pacing in the small open space between the living area and the cabin’s kitchenette. “Or, well, maybe you are, and I guess you can just kill me whenever since I’m starting to fall for it. Or maybe I’m just going crazy. I’m imagining that you’re here because I’m all alone in the middle of nowhere and I miss you. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. That’s—great, fine. Awesome twist for this whole living alone journey I’m on.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Calm down, _Jake Peralta_. You’re not losing it and you’re not dreaming, either. I’m back, and it’s real, and that’s why I’m here. So, let’s go home already and affirm that I’ve alive with all of the other people who have seen and talked to me in the past week.”

“Oh, no. No, no, no, no. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving this cabin, especially not with you. You don’t follow your weird dream-illusions, no matter how many _Brooklyn Nine-Nine_ references they make, that’s just common sense.”

The responding tone that Mister Stark takes is extremely familiar. “Oh, I’m sorry, you’ve been through this before? You’ve become a real expert with hallucinations without me? Well, if I wasn’t real, could I do this?” He punches Peter in the arm, the look on his face particularly spiteful. Peter’s sense does perk up to anticipate that move, surprisingly, but Peter’s so shocked that the power is working properly again that he doesn’t actually dodge the hit.

“Ow!” Peter scowls at Tony. “I could still be dreaming, or under some kind of spell or something. That doesn’t prove anything but that you’re mean even in my imagination!”

“Oh my god,” Tony groans. “I miss when you were beating me up. You wanna kill me with your bare hands? Will that prove it to you?” He pauses. “Wait, that’s counter productive. Then you really would be a murderer. Also, I’d be dead again. We can’t do that to Morgan. Also, then Pepper would kill you for killing me, it’d be a whole thing.”

“Or you could just, you know. Move on. Get out of my psyche. Go to the great beyond. Whichever it is.”

Tony dramatically plants himself onto Peter’s futon, then stands up, recoiling with a scrunch of his nose. “How did you get an entire fabric to smell like sour cream and onion chips? Teenagers are so disgusting, I didn’t miss that at all.”

* * *

Tony did not bring enough supplies for an extended stay at a cabin in the middle of nowhere, but he wasn’t completely unprepared. In the truck he’d left a backpack of clothes and toiletries. He’d hoped they would be used at some sort of five-star hotel on the way home, but instead he’s setting himself up to crash on Peter’s disgusting, stained living room futon because Peter had refused to share the bed.

“You know, my back will never forgive you for this,” Tony grumbles, leaning against the doorframe of Peter’s singular bathroom dressed for bed in the first pair of sweatpants he’d thrown into his bag and a t-shirt that thankfully Pepper hadn’t been emotionally ready to throw away, as with most of his things. 

Clothes were as far as he’d gotten into packing before Pepper swatted his hands away and thought of everything he never would have for an emergency case such as this. The minute he’d seen a toothbrush and a warm sweater he’d mentally reminded himself to tell Pepper Potts how much he adored her, as if he wasn’t already so many months overdue.

“ _Well_ …” Peter hums.

“And don’t say my _back_ is a figment of your imagination, either. You’ve had a similar response to almost everything I’ve said tonight, and I’m not entertaining your weird solipsistic bullshit anymore.”

Peter speaks through the toothbrush in his mouth. “How do you know what solipsism is?” The philosophical term is entirely butchered through the wad of toothpaste foam.

Tony bristles. “I’m smart. I read.” Peter gives him a skeptical look in the mirror. He switches gears. “How does this place even have running water, anyway?”

Peter shrugs. “I’ve just tried to be thankful for it.”

“That’s SHIELD for you,” Tony huffs, shuffling by Peter into the tiny excuse of a bathroom. It’s just a standing shower, sink, and toilet, but Tony _is_ actually appreciative of it. He’s weirdly comforted to know Peter’s had at least some modicum of comfort out here. He really had been imagining something a little more miserable a la his conditions with the Ten Rings.

Surprisingly, the fact that Tony can touch Peter, that he’s warm and breathing, is not curing his idea of Tony’s existence being some kind of trick or dream. It’s desperate, but Tony is taking the small touches as Peter allows them. They’re far from reunion hug territory right now, but he gives Peter’s shoulder a firm squeeze on the way by, and he doesn’t flinch from it like Tony worried he might.

He does however turn around, switching spots with Tony instead of going to the bedroom. "This isn't a SHIELD safe-house."

"What?" Tony just manages not to sling toothpaste everywhere. "Yes it is. The only reason I found this place was talking to Fury. I had to make a call to Danvers, then go through Hill, the whole complicated shebang to get myself some one-eyed face time."

Peter shakes his head. "Director Fury—the real one, not the—never mind. SHIELD offered me a place. There are apparently still some bases up and running, resources. I thought about it, but then Harley called and offered up the cabin, so I—"

"Wait, woah, time out. Harley? As in— _Harley Keener_? Bratty, smart mouthed, little bit of a pain in the ass? Self-proclaimed Tennessee Wonder Child?”

“Guess so.” Peter shrugs, then avoids Tony’s gaze, playing with a loose string on the sweater he’s wearing instead. “We, ah, bonded. At the funeral.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” He scratches the back of his neck. “Aunt May tried to support me through it. She did her best, but I ran off by myself for a while. Pepper found me, and I could tell she was worried. She looked at me like she’d been looking at Morgan all day, you know? Like she’d been waiting for me to break. I was hiding in Morgan’s princess tent in the backyard and I’d just sort of collapsed in on myself, all curled up and crying my eyes out. She said I should talk to Harley, since you’d taken him under your wing too. I don’t know. She thought it might help.”

It’s a small space, but Tony purposefully takes the extra step forward, attempting to communicate comfort and support, regret that he’d left Peter and his family in such an emotionally taxing situation. “Did it?”

“Sort of. For a minute I had worried that, well...he’d been alive during the Blip when I wasn’t, I didn’t realize your history went back as far as it did...”

Tony gets the gist. He puts a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “You’re irreplaceable, Pete. Trust me.”

Peter blushes a little, which makes Tony frown. Maybe he _really_ hadn’t told Peter how much he cared about him enough.

“I guess. It helped that Harley...he’s cool, you know? He doesn’t take things too seriously. He said you’d told him about me, that he could tell how much you, um, cared about me. Once we started talking about all of the things you guys worked on whenever he came to visit, and all of the things you and I had worked on before I’d...we couldn’t stop. It was like we had you back again, just getting to work on things.” He smiles to himself, tinged a bit sadly. “It was nice.”

“Nice enough that he hooked you up with this place.”

Peter nods. “He said something about an uncle that liked to hunt. When his uncle was gone during the Blip, Harley apparently took the place over. Used it as a tech testing ground or something.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Tony admits. “He’s always had a talent for making shit that ends up exploding in his face.”

Peter shares a smile with him, clearly knowing. It’s nice to imagine Peter and Harley getting along.

Tony can admit, for the first few years after the Mandarin, he’d left Harley alone with his gifts and a swift deposit into a tuition fund with the kid’s name on it. But sometimes there were phone calls or emails exchanged between them. A quick _I saw Ultron on the news, hope you’re okay_ or a subtle prodding email at Harley to go to a preparatory high school in Knoxville or Nashville with Tony’s money.

Then the Blip happened, and Tony lost Peter, and Tony was having a daughter, and suddenly he was inviting Harley up to New York, wanting to see for himself that someone else he cared about was safe and alive. It had been therapeutic for Tony too, having Harley around for a few weeks every year to work with on projects and laze around at the lake house. He’d completely avoided the labs at Avengers compound to avoid the memories of working with Peter. Sprucing up vintage cars with Harley in the garage allowed him to remember the good times without as much pain and regret. It was healing.

Not to mention it was good to see Harley growing into his intelligence as he got older. Tony got to help with his MIT application, got to see him thrive in a laboratory environment, got to see Harley bond with Morgan after years of having a little sister of his own. It was warm in a way so few things were to Tony after the Snap, and he’d treasured Harley being in his life again, even if it was just for short spurts.

“I can’t wait to see you two together,” is what Tony ends up voicing, a little earnestly choked up at the idea. He’s thought about Peter and Morgan’s introduction a few times now, and it still squeezes at his heart. To tell Morgan stories at bedtime about Peter and Spider-Man was one thing. The two of them together in the same room, interacting, playing...he’ll probably cry like the overly-emotional father he’s become.

Peter smiles at first, but it twists into something more morose. “Yeah. Right.” Tony realizes he’s lost Peter, then. For a moment, teasing, talking about Harley...Peter had forgotten to believe the lies he’d been telling himself. That Tony was an imposter, or a ghost, or a figment of his imagination. Tony had gotten through to him, just for a moment.

“Pete…” Tony starts, but Peter swiftly turns out of the bathroom and takes the few steps down the hallway into the bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind him and ending any attempt Tony might have made at conversation.

Tony sighs, squirting some of Peter’s toothpaste onto the travel-sized brush and putting it into his mouth, submitting to sleeping on the uncomfortable futon for the night and attempting to convince Peter of his reality in the morning. However he’s going to manage that.

* * *

Peter can’t breathe. He’s covered in gravel, in dirt, in soot. He’s in the dark and the air is harder and harder to come to his lungs. He’s breathing too hard, why is he breathing so hard?

“Wakey-wakey, kid.” Peter opens his eyes, the dark not helping them adjust. A beam of light illuminates the face in front of him. Beck. “There he is. Thought I might’ve lost you for a second there, and we can’t have that. Show’s not over just yet!”

Beck pulls Peter up by the collar—his suit, he’s in his suit, but the mask is off—and Peter’s vision swims. The light and dark blend and swirl, and suddenly they’re on a stage, the light from the concrete now a spotlight. In the crowd are recognizable faces—the other Avengers, Aunt May, MJ, Ned.

“Convincing the world to throw their favor of you away was the easy part. For my next trick…” He spins, his cape revealing a figure standing behind him. A familiar set of red and gold armor. “Folks, they called him The Next Iron Man, can you believe it?! He knew that, and he turned into such an utter disappointment anyway!”

The crowd boos and jeers, only making Beck smile. “I know, right? And I figure, what better way to get that idea out of his head than to let the Iron Man himself do the talking!”

The Iron Man armor stands, its arms in the air. The crowd cheers. It feels a bit like professional wrestling, painting Spider-Man as the villain to hate and Iron Man as the indomitable hero.

“It’s not real,” Peter says to Beck, but mostly to himself. He doesn’t know how he got here, if being under the building from years ago was real either, but the stage, the posturing, his friends and family in the audience...then there’s the most important clue. “Tony’s dead.”

“Aw, Pete, buddy,” Beck tuts, wagging his pointer back and forth. “Poor kid thought Tony Stark actually cared about him. Oof! Too bad that was all a lie. He had to fake his own death to get away from you! How pathetic is that?”

Peter shakes his head, forcing away the part of himself that was always full of disbelief, remembering middle school years of friends who only wanted him for his grades or to learn things to make fun of him for later. “No, he—he brought me back because he—Mister Stark would never do that!”

Peter looks to the suit for reassurance.

As if knowing where Peter’s mind was going, the faceplate comes up, revealing Tony underneath, a devilish grin on his face as he turns away from the audience and to Peter.

“No!” Peter insists, attempting to stand only for his limbs to fail him, his knees locking him against the floor of the stage. “No, that’s not—it’s an illusion, I’m not falling for—”

In an instant, the Iron Man armor fills Peter’s vision with an accompanying punch to Peter’s sternum. The air leaves him, draining away his response and taxing his lungs, still heavy and not breathing right. “How’s _that_ for real?”

“Mister—Mister Stark, please—”

“‘Mister Stark!’” Tony mimics in a poor attempt at Peter’s voice. “Always so annoying! You can’t even say my name half the time. Why would I ever actually mentor a little pipsqueak like you?” He grabs Peter by the neck, using the suit’s strength to slam Peter’s body into the stage. “You’re the reason I died. You couldn’t step up, so I had to. And now I’m back to get you out of my way—out of _our_ way. Mysterio is going to be an excellent Iron Man, don’t you think? After all, he’s so much smarter, so much better. It took him no time to get EDITH out of your hands, right?”

“Tony, please, I’m sorry! I tried! I didn’t know. I didn’t know he was—”

A metal boot presses against Peter’s stomach, twisting back and forth, possibly in an attempt to break as many of his ribs as possible. “You talk too much, did I ever tell you that? Time to shut him up once and for all, right folks?” The crowd cheers and cheers and cheers. His ears are barraged by their noise, his body locked in immobility. His words are all he has. 

“Tony, please, no, please, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Tony! Tony, no!”

“Peter!” Comes Tony’s voice. Through the crowd, through Beck’s laughter, through the whirr of the Iron Man armor’s repulsers. “Peter you need to _wake up_!”

Peter jolts out of the dream into darkness, a breath shoved out of his lungs as if he’d been underwater seconds before. He looks above him to see—

“No, no, no,” he pleads, trying to move but his arms are weighted, he’s stuck, he can’t get out, Tony’s going to kill him and he can’t _move_ , can’t _breathe_.

“Peter, it’s okay, calm down—”

“No! Please don’t! Please!” Peter hears the desperation in his voice, the way his voice pitches too high, too desperate. His legs kick and kick but never hit anything but the open air.

“Okay, okay, I’m letting go, it’s okay, you’re okay—” The weight on his arms lifts and Peter sits up, scooting backwards until his back hits something solid. He curls inward, shaking, his heart slapping against his chest so hard it hurts.

It takes a few seconds, but through the sobbing—wailing, that’s what he sounds like, begging and crying, shaking with fear—he knows it was a nightmare. It always takes him a minute, now. Before, the rare nightmare was something he could brush off or logic himself out of. After Beck, reality is something harder to trust, and every dream cuts a little deeper at something he’s trying so hard to forget.

But he has things that ground him. He’s always alone when he wakes. He’s in the bedroom at the cabin. Outside there are owls and crickets.

Then there’s a heartbeat, so close. A panicked sort of thumping that matches his own, breathing that isn’t evened out just right. He’s not alone.

“Peter?” asks a voice. Tony’s voice. But Tony can’t be here, just like he wasn’t in the dream. Peter shakes his head.

“S’ not real, not real, not real—”

“I’m right here, Peter.” Warm, worn skin touches the outside of Peter’s hands where they’re wrapped around his bent legs. A thumb moves up and down, back and forth. “I’m not going anywhere, not anymore. I’m right here.”

Peter moves his hand experimentally, catching a finger between his own and clutching like a newborn might. The hand—Tony, it’s Tony, please let it be Tony, _for once_ —grabs back, taking Peter’s hand completely in his own.

“You with me, Pete?” Peter nods, still determined not to look, not to face this new dream, this happier one where he gets to have Tony back, where the world rewards him despite his failures.

“Good, that’s good, here.” Tony moves closer. Peter can tell because the smell of cologne and motor oil that stains everything he’s ever worn permeates Peter’s enhanced senses. The hand holding his shifts slightly, joined by another hand against Peter’s back, stroking back and forth. “When Morgan was a baby, she used to get really easily woken up. I always told Pepper it was my fault—Starks rarely sleep, or something like that. So, I’d stay with her all night like this, just rubbing her back and talking nonsense until she fell back asleep.”

He wants to argue that he’s not a baby. He’s dealt with plenty of nightmares on his own. No May, no Tony, and only the quiet of the forest around him to keep him company. Still. It’s been so long since he had Tony, and the motion is grounding, somehow, as much as the talking.

“You were calling for me,” Tony says, alternating to Peter’s hair, stroking and playing with the curls. “And I’m so sorry that I couldn’t come for so long, but I am _here_ now, Pete. I came home, and I’m staying for as long as I’m allowed.”

After Tony died, his body went to dust. Disintegrated. There was nothing to bury, no ashes to collect, just Tony there and then gone.

But the universe conserves energy. At Ben’s funeral, Peter got up and shakily delivered a quote about wanting a physicist to speak at your funeral, talked about the first law of thermodynamics and how Ben was still with them, somehow.

It wasn’t actually much of a comfort to Peter back then, but he knew Ben had liked the quote and he’d been determined to give a eulogy where he hadn’t for his own parents.

It certainly wasn’t comforting after he watched Tony die in front of him. All he wanted was the physical man to come back, to make his heart restart—he missed the soft touches, the steadily growing laughter lines around his eyes, the words of reassurance, _Underoos_ and _Spider-Baby_ and _Buddy_ , given out so casually, so filled with love, if only Peter hadn’t taken another father-figure for granted.

It turned out the universe, the stones, some kind of omniscience—that was what saved him. Tony Stark set his universe to rights and in return, it gave him more time.

Time he’s been using to convince Peter to come back home instead of actually being back at home with his family.

“I’m sorry,” Peter sobs, a fresh stream of tears pouring between his fingers, his hands still shoved against his eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t—I’ve missed you, and I wanted you back but I—”

“Shh, shh, I know, it’s okay, I know,” Tony soothes, fully wrapping his arms around Peter in a tight squeeze, bringing Peter into his shoulder. Peter falls into the touch instead of resisting, curling his arms around Tony’s middle, digging in. “You have nothing to apologize for, kiddo. Nothing.”

“But I—everything with Beck, and EDITH, and my identity, and everyone thinks that I—” The words come out a garbled mess, muffled into Tony’s shoulder, the worn fabric of Tony’s t-shirt absorbing Peter’s tears and his words. “I couldn’t be the next Tony Stark, and now I can’t even be Spider-Man!”

“Nothing,” Tony reiterates. “Forget the note, I don’t need you to be the next me, not like that. I want you to be the best Peter possible, that’s it. So we are gonna get you through this, and take you home, and get your spidey-identity back.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, kid. I have a few plans but it’s—we just have to try. I can’t take you being out here by yourself, not when I just got you back.”

“I’ve missed you so much,” Peter admits, safely hidden in the juncture of Tony’s neck and shoulder.

“I missed you too, Peter.” Tony gives Peter’s cheek a small, affectionate peck of a kiss, something Peter’s seen in photos of him and Morgan at the lake house, something he never imagined he’d get, because Tony was gone. “I love you so much, okay? ‘Cause you’re my kid now. I’ve decided, May and I are sharing custody, it’s all down to the paperwork.”

This gets the laugh out of Peter that he’s sure Tony was aiming for, but he feels his face heat up too at the idea of being Tony’s, of being a solidified part of the Stark family as much as he’s always been a Parker.

“I love you too, Mister Stark.” Peter takes his mouth away from Tony’s shoulder to say it. Tony shakes his head against Peter’s—probably at being addressed as Mister Stark after all of that—but he brings Peter close again, continuing the hug until it turns into more of Peter’s head against Tony’s chest, the both of them warm despite being on top of the flannel sheets of the bed.

Peter drifts off to the sound of Tony’s heartbeat, back again, his warm hand carving a path through Peter’s hair.

* * *

Despite not sleeping on the futon the night before, Tony wakes up to his back’s protest at being in the same position for the entire night. Usually he’s the opposite—he’ll start the night curled around Pepper and wake up with half of his body off of the mattress. Instead, he wakes up to Peter dead asleep next to him, his head tucked into Tony’s side and the arm not awkwardly jammed under his body lying partially across Tony’s chest, Peter’s fingers firmly clutching the fabric of Tony’s shirt as if he unconsciously worried that Tony would disappear if he let go.

Now that Tony thinks about it...probably not that far off as assumptions go, based on his behavior since Tony arrived at the cabin.

He wants to stay still, for Peter. Despite not looking as bad as Tony had worried about, Peter still looks rough. He seems paranoid, different. The nightmare didn’t seem to surprise Peter, and his reaction to it certainly implied that on other nights, without Tony’s presence, he woke up disoriented and scared, likely unable to go back to sleep. This might just be the longest interrupted sleep Peter’s had in months. Poor kid.

His spine is tightly wound and screaming to be popped, though. Physically he’d looked just as old as he’d been when he left, and he’s learning that he kept the same old aches and pains on his body too. Whatever brought him back didn’t magically fix his lingering heart condition or his age or whatever weird medical thing might take him down tomorrow if he’s not careful. It just reversed the consequences of the universe-saving decision that took his life.

He’s grateful to be alive again in any condition, honestly, but yeah. He’s itching to pop his back like he knows is bad for him, and he really needs to pee.

With a forlorn sigh, he runs a hand through Peter’s hair, then down his back, continuing the comforting motions that lulled Peter back to sleep after his nightmare the night before. He’d been telling the truth about using the technique on Morgan, and he’s glad it brings comfort to Peter too. It had taken him a few years to realize that running his fingers through Morgan’s hair was something he’d done to Peter both teasingly and in a few of his more vulnerable moments. It helped him feel like his kids were connected in a way they would have been without the Blip.

It occurs to him that Peter might be deep enough asleep that he won’t wake if Tony slips out of bed quietly enough. He throws an experimental leg over the edge of the bed, and Peter doesn’t stir. He grabs Peter’s hand, detangling it from his shirt and rearranging it on the mattress instead as he scoots away. He takes a beat, watching as Peter stirs for a second—his hand twitching around a bit listlessly before flipping over and continuing his sleepy pattern of breathing.

He breathes out in relief, but still measures his steps to be on the quiet side. If it’s his footsteps that wake the kid, he’ll really hate himself for forgetting about the whole super-hearing thing.

As he goes about his business in the bathroom, he considers the next steps. The kid at the very least doesn’t think he’s some kind of specter or illusion anymore, so Tony can probably convince him to pack up their meager belongings and be out before noon. He might even tell Peter to skip on his stash of food here and instead let Tony buy him the most filling breakfast platter that a local diner can offer up on the way back towards New York.

He pads back into the bedroom as quietly as possible, still hoping not to wake Peter from what looked to be a much-needed sleep. It’s just supposed to be a quick pop of his head in the door, but one look at Peter stops Tony in his plans to call Pepper and let her know what’s going on.

Peter is curled up where Tony left him, shaking and shivering hard enough for Tony to physically see it. He runs back to the bed, his hands roaming over Peter’s body, desperate to heal, to fix.

“Pete? What’s wrong?” Peter doesn’t respond at first, but the look on his face when he turns onto his back is enough. Another bout of tears stains his cheeks, and the look behind his eyes is heartbreaking—lost, scared, and so, so alone. “Oh, Peter.”

“I’m fine, I—it’s fine. I just woke up and you were gone and I—”

“You thought I was _gone_.” He sits down on the mattress, easily curling Peter into his chest. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. You’re okay.”

Peter pulls back, resistant, scrubbing at his tears as if to erase them. “No, it’s—it’s dumb, I’m sorry, I’m not—you don’t have to—I’m just being dumb.”

Tony sighs, keeping his hold on Peter. “Pete, it’s not dumb. You went through something. What Beck did, it messed with you. That’s what shitty people like him do. You know the kinds of enemies I’ve dealt with, and a lot of the hardest ones to get over came way before Thanos. People with a grudge, with nothing to lose—they’ll screw with you and the people you love at any cost. But that’s also why we’re going to be here in the aftermath. Pepper was there through every second of me putting myself back together, even when we were supposed to be taking a break. I’m here for you, even when you’re scared that I’m not.”

Peter nods, accepting when Tony folds him back into a hug.

“You know, you never used to be this…” The sentence stalls out, as if Peter wasn’t sure where it was going in the first place. Still, Tony catches his drift.

“Sorry, too much? I’m used to Morgan. She’s always been a cuddle-bug and it’s sort of rubbed off on me.”

“No! No, it’s nice. Just...different.”

“None of the important stuff is, kiddo, I promise.”

“It seemed like a lot changed, at first,” Peter admits, picking at his fingernails a little instead of looking at Tony. “The lake house, Morgan, you and Pepper being married...it all happened while I was gone. You used to be this...I don’t know; indomitable, heroic figure, to me, and suddenly I was seeing you as some regular old stay-at-home dad. Pepper once told me you used to wash the dishes by hand and I almost stroked out.”

Tony smiles at that. “Good to know I’m still unpredictable, at least,” he muses wryly. Still, he attempts to be serious when he says “Pete, the only reason any of that happened was because of you. The moment I first held Morgan in my arms, I realized how stupid I’d been with you. Suddenly, all I wanted was to hug you, talk to you...be _open_ with you about how much I cared, and I couldn’t. So I raised Morgan with every hug in the world available to her, and I was more honest with her and Pepper about what I was feeling. I don’t want to go back to who I was, but I can promise you, I’m still me.”

“I get what you mean. After you—after you died, I was so...it took me so long to move on. After everything with Beck, I realized I never really was able to, all the way. I just packed it away and focused on the family I had left and being Spider-Man.” Peter looks around them, referencing the cabin. “Staying out here hasn’t helped.”

“Good thing we’re leaving, then.”

Peter looks apprehensive. “It’s still not safe, Mister Stark. What if someone finds out I’m at the lake house? Or—or what if we can’t prove that Beck’s video is fake?”

“One minute you’re complaining about this place, and then the moment I offer to leave, suddenly you have a million reasons to stay? What’s up?”

Peter bites at his lip. “You’re right, it’s—we should go.”

“That wasn’t an answer.”

“It’s—”

“If you say dumb one more time, kid, I swear—”

“It’s stupid,” Peter tries instead, earning what Tony hopes is an impressively disapproving fatherly stare. “I said you were right, can’t you just let it go?”

“Pete, if you don’t want to go, I won’t make you go. This is about getting you home, it doesn’t matter how long it takes.”

“I want to,” Peter sighs. “This place has been safe, Tony. It’s the only safe place I’ve had since I ran from New York.” Quieter, he admits, “It’s the only place I’ve been able to get you back.”

“You’ll still have me when we leave.” He grabs Peter’s hand. “I’m not leaving you behind.”

“I know, I just—I don’t know.” It’s a hell of a contradictory sentence, but Tony gets it. Peter’s mind is fighting so much. He’s trying to trust Tony, but it’s hard to come. Even leaving a shitty place full of bad memories is still leaving something familiar, in the end. And even if Peter really believes Tony’s real now, it probably isn’t stopping the niggling sensation in his mind that he can’t trust anything he’s experiencing, anymore. They’ll have to work on it, after they get back.

“How about this,” Tony proposes. “We pack up, we go to the car. If at any point you change your mind, even if we’re halfway home, we turn around and come back. I won’t ask why, I won’t try to change your mind—the minute you say the words, we’ll make you feel safe again.”

Peter sits with the idea for a minute, allowing Tony to move his hand from holding Peter’s to rubbing at his shoulder, trying to keep rhythmic, constant comfort, since it seems to work for him.

“Yeah,” Peter agrees. “We should—yes. I’ll try.”

* * *

“You ready to go, kiddo?”

“Mmhm,” Peter hums, though it sounds unsure even to his own ears. When Tony turns to him, Peter is looking around the cabin, trying to commit it to memory, to know it will always be here if he needs it again, if Tony’s plans all fall through. Anything to keep his family safe. “Yeah, I’m ready.” The second time sounds more confident.

Peter doesn't actually have that much stuff. A medium suitcase fits the entirety of his post-identity-revealed life. His Spider-Man suit is hidden with May. He hadn't even stopped by the house when Beck's message was broadcast to the world—he'd smartly swung straight to Stark Tower and called Happy, who collected May for their brief goodbye and her delivery of some of his clothes and belongings.

Peter picks up his case with ease, joining Tony at the door with a single key that hangs from a Star Wars-themed lanyard. At Tony's raised brow, Peter shrugs. "Harley."

"Ah," he comments. Peter locks the door, though he’s pretty sure the reason Harley’s so confident in this place’s security is a lot of hidden tech and security measures within the walls. At the very least, he suspects there’s something more effective than the simple key to protect the hideout. "So you have more than me in common."

Peter nods. "It's different than with Ned. Or with MJ, even though we only went on a couple of dates before…" Peter shakes himself out of the memory, leading them through the forest's brush and toward the campground where Tony parked his car. “But yeah. It’s fun. Nice.”

“Did he know about…?” Tony makes a _thwhip_ sound that Peter has to believe was stolen straight from Ned’s mouth to indicate Peter’s identity. “Before?”

“He figured it out,” Peter answers. It's funny to him, now, that more people didn’t figure out his identity before it was revealed. Harley connected the dots pretty easily after seeing Peter’s proficiency with making super-tech on Tony’s machines.

Tony shakes his head. “What am I gonna do with all of you smart kids? God help me when Morgan turns into a teenager.”

The talk of Harley is distracting enough that he’d forgotten, for a moment, what they’re doing, where they’re going. Tony grumbles a curse, tripping over a rock that Peter easily avoided, and it brings him back to the forest, to the cabin shrinking into the background, getting lost in the leaves.

Tony stops a few steps ahead, having noticed the way he’s eyeing the way they’ve just come from. “You okay, Spider-Baby?”

And maybe the nickname should make him feel silly, or coddled, but instead it’s warming. It feels like home—trading barbs in the lab, going home to Aunt May’s terrible cooking, weekends at the compound that often dissolved into movie nights instead of work.

Peter turns back around, walking up to where Tony stands before replying, insistent on not looking back anymore. “I will be.”

It seems to carry the point Peter wanted—he’s not going to ask to come back. He’s come this far, and now that he’s gotten this taste of home back, he’s willing to fight for it.

“I know you will,” Tony says, wrapping an arm over Peter’s shoulder and leading them along towards the car. The smile on his face matches Peter’s own.

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of this fic was based on the scene in FFH where Peter, panicked, doesn’t trust that Happy is who he appears to be at first. I think there’s probably a lot of psychological stuff going on after having the reality rug pulled out from under him multiple times, and could be and are certainly darker fics that twist Peter’s concerns of reality after FFH much more than I have. (But I will always want more, wink wink.)
> 
> I remember reblogging the title quote on tumblr MANY years ago, and it stuck with me, and I particularly liked the idea of pairing it in Peter’s mind with Tony’s energy/existence literally coming back—that his energy literally stuck around, conserved by the universe with the express purpose of bringing him back to life at some point.
> 
> CinnamonrollStark, hopefully this was a great gift for you! To everyone else, thanks so much for reading it—all comments, kudos, etc. are appreciated, as always!


End file.
